Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Aviation and Meteorological Services (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Thursday, 11 Dec 1952

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Aviation and Meteorological Services (Resumed).

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. Lynch)

I think the manner in which the two Opposition speakers spoke to this Estimate here last night was commendable. If they did not give this present project their full blessing, at least they approached it in a fairly objective manner. Having regard to the former attitude of these Deputies, their former statements, despite the actions of the Government of which they were members, I think it is only to be expected that the statements they made last night should be consistent with the attitude of mind they displayed formerly. Deputy Cosgrave is on record as commending the Minister for Industry and Commerce and his Department, before the change of Government in 1948, for their approach to the expansion of civil aviation. Yesterday evening he felt that if such expansion was to take place, this certainly is not the time. Valuable time has been lost since 1948, and from now on we should make sure that we lose no further time in getting our transatlantic service started, if we are to go ahead with the idea at all. Deputy MacBride, who apparently is also in favour of establishing a transatlantic air service, says that the danger in this case is that we are possibly starting on too modest a scale. He did not agree that such travel should be subsidised, but, on the other hand, admitted frankly that he did not see how such a service could be established other than by Government action.

One of the main justifications for the initial introduction of proposals to establish a transatlantic air service was the ever-increasing number of American tourists coming to Europe and availing of the different air services operating in 1948 and since. Deputy Cosgrave told us yesterday that competition is becoming keener and that there are more air services operating, but nevertheless, as the Minister pointed out yesterday, if competition is increasing, so is traffic, which has increased to such an extent that twice as many from North America travel to and from this country by air at present as travelled in 1951. The figures, as quoted by the Minister, were: 5,600 in 1951 and 10,400 in this year to date. From that point of view, it would seem that there is room for a new operating company to cash in, so to speak, on the market now available in transatlantic passenger traffic. The time has passed when such criticisms as we formerly heard levelled against this service that it was a luxury scheme, an expensive scheme to gain prestige, can justifiably be levelled against it. Almost every airline in the world is making money at present.

Mr. Sweetman

Give us a list of them before making such a nonsensical statement as that.

Mr. Lynch

It is not nonsensical.

Mr. Briscoe

Every airline on the transatlantic run is making a profit.

Mr. Sweetman

Give us the list and give us the figures.

Mr. Briscoe

I gave them.

Mr. Lynch

Seaboard and Western Airlines, with which Aer Línte propose to join in the carrying out of this proposal, has been one of the most successful companies in the world, and, with that background, we can repose some confidence in the arrangements being made for the establishment of this service. That company has been so successful in its short period of operation that it can now afford to put new super-Constellations in the air and apparently will be making these super-Constellation aircraft available to Aer Línte in the operation of this service.

Mr. Burke

Deputy Sweetman is not able to take it. We are putting the transatlantic air service back again. The Deputy is taking it very badly.

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy should go out to the Balbriggan widow and she will tell him more about it.

Mr. MacCarthy

That is an uncalled for observation.

Mr. Lynch

Deputy Sweetman stays up too late writing letters to his constituents.

Mr. Sweetman

If Deputy Lynch wrote a few it would do him no harm either.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair will have to take very serious notice of the continuous interruptions of the Parliamentary Secretary. He has not had ten consecutive minutes without interruptions since he started to speak.

Mr. Sweetman

My remark to Deputy Burke is in a political sense and not in any other sense.

Mr. MacCarthy

It should not have been made at all.

Mr. Burke

I would expect it of him.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Parliamentary Secretary should be allowed to continue without interruption.

Mr. Lynch

The last interruption was in respect of a remark I made that this new venture was not going to cost the taxpaper any money. Deputy Sweetman said that it was and chose to intervene at that stage. I might as well again revert to past performances in that connection. Deputy McGilligan, when Minister for Finance, was primarily responsible for the abandonment of the former service. He said, speaking in Dáil Éireann on the 25th May, 1948: "I thought we had got rid of Aer Línte for ever once the decision was taken to close that service down. Apparently some people are still concerned about the closing of the transatlantic service."

If Deputy McGilligan meant to close the transatlantic air service down once and for all he could, at that stage, having regard to his influence with his colleagues in the Government, not only have closed down the service but have abolished Aer Línte as a company. With that he could have appropriated, I presume, to the Exchequer the £1,800,000 that was available on loan free of interest from the Minister for Finance. Apparently he did not so do. That money was still available to the present Minister if he chose to use it all. He proposes to use only the £450,000 profit which the sale of the Constellations made at that particular time. Therefore, I suggest, as the Minister stated in his opening remarks, that this service is now being established without any cost whatever to the taxpayer. If Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, had gone the whole hog, abolished the company and appropriated their assets to the Exchequer, it would then become necessary to raise money either by taxation or otherwise. In the event it was not necessary to do so. Therefore, I think there is no doubt that the establishment of this service will not cost the taxpayer any money.

Deputy MacBride suggested that if this venture was not a success there would not ever be another possibility of establishing a transatlantic air service. That indicates that Deputy MacBride is in favour of establishing a transatlantic air service, and he said so last night. He said also that unless that service could be extended to carry traffic across Europe, it would probably not be successful. He also said that, since there were so many companies in existence operating from North America to the Continent of Europe, it was unlikely that very many new passengers would be found to avail of the Aer Línte service, because the bulk of them would be travelling to Europe, in any case, and would not be interested in changing their airline once they got to Ireland and had to find a different service to take them from Ireland to Europe. He said that what, in fact, would happen was that they would book with the company that could not only take them to Ireland but also, without changing, to London, Paris, Rome or any place else. That is not so. By reason of the fact that we had no air service in operation, many people, who might come to Ireland for a holiday, would merely land at Shannon and leave within an hour or two on the same aeroplane. If they found they could travel by a service only as far as Shannon, they might then stay in Ireland for a few days or a few weeks if they realised they could avail of Aer Lingus or other services to carry them further afield.

I agree with Deputy MacBride when he suggests that, in the case of a person in New York or Boston who goes into an airline office, thinking of taking a holiday in Europe and who finds he can book through to Paris, the likelihood is that he will avail of this. On the other hand, if he goes into the Aer Línte office when it is established in New York and finds that this service brings him to Ireland only, but is informed that we have services available to bring him further afield, it is more than likely that he will spend a little of his vacation in Ireland.

I do not want to dwell upon the value of the American tourist traffic here because I think it is generally accepted. I do suggest that anything which will enhance and increase that traffic is certainly to be welcomed. There is to my mind one matter of regret in this arrangement and that is that the aeroplanes will actually be piloted by the staff of Seaboard and Western Airlines and that our Irish pilots will not have the opportunity immediately at any rate to operate those aeroplanes. In introducing the Estimate last night, the Tánaiste said that he had got numerous letters from some of the pilots who had been trained to fly the Constellations that were bought originally. Many of these pilots had written to him offering their services again if they could be availed of. It is a matter for regret that at this stage, at any rate, these services cannot be availed of. I know that there are pilots now in the service of Aer Lingus who have sufficient training, in fact almost full training, that would enable them to operate these aeroplanes if the opportunity presented itself. I hope that will not be lost sight of in any future expansion of this arrangement.

I take it the ultimate objective is that we should use these aeroplanes or should operate these aeroplanes ourselves as a nation, that we should secure aeroplanes and man them in so far as it can be done with Irishmen, Irish pilots and technical staff and passenger catering staff. Our record and the record of our pilots in other airlines has proved their ability sufficiently. Some of the most famous international air pilots are some of those who lost their employment as a result of the abandonment of the former transatlantic service. I hope, therefore, that in any development that takes place the intention will be, in so far as we can achieve it, to employ our own pilots and our own technical staff in this operation.

I did not intend to speak at this length. My original intention was, as I said, to commend the manner in which the debate was approached yesterday. I hope the interjections we have had this morning do not indicate a change of mind on the part of the Opposition. The Fine Gael Party, by implication at least, if not by their actions, have in their hearts the proper approach to aviation, if we can judge by the statements of Deputy Morrissey before he was Minister and even when he was Minister. They have at heart, I believe, the proper development of our aviation services. Deputy MacBride has given a similar indication. I feel that at least one member of the Labour Party by his association with air pilots has a similar approach.

I hope the debate will be continued in much the same strain as yesterday's debate. As soon as these services come into operation I hope the traffic which will enable them to make a profit will be forthcoming. I believe it will be.

To suggest that because money is held by Aer Línte when Aer Línte is the property of the State, the risking of that money is not risking the money of the taxpayer is just a subterfuge that can only be described as politically dishonest. We have got to consider the employment of this money and whether it is desirable to employ it in this way. We have got to consider that against the background that the Tánaiste himself and other Ministers have, during the past nine months, been making it clear that they regarded the capital investment programme of the country as being a programme, the financing of which they found it difficult to visualise. Right from the beginning of this financial year, from the time that the Estimates were published, the difficulty which the Government professed to find in financing capital works that were considered desirable was a difficulty that was always stressed on many occasions, and it is one that we must consider in relation to the Estimate before us. I have no intention of entering into a discussion on matters which are more appropriate to finance, as to whether the extent of the difficulty in financing the capital programme is as great or greater than the Minister or the Minister for Finance has indicated, but we must consider this project in the factual light of what they have said at earlier stages. We must consider it from the point of view of whether it is worth while investing this £450,000 in this service when we are apparently so short of funds for investment.

When the Minister himself was speaking in this House on the 21st March last, as reported in column 231, Volume 130, he said:—

"The size of that bona fide investment programme is such that it will be a matter of considerable difficulty to raise the money to finance it. If we complicate that task by adding to this investment programme expenditures which can be described as an investment only by stretching that term beyond its obvious meaning, then we shall make the task much harder and jeopardise the bona fide investment projects upon which the Government wishes to embark.”

He came along at a later stage and he stressed again the difficulty of finding the funds that would be necessary for the purpose of dealing with the investment programme within the State. Following that viewpoint put forward by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, we had in the Budget statement a similar line taken by the Minister for Finance. He made it clear in his Budget statement that he was of opinion that there was difficulty in finding adequate assets for the capital investment projects that were considered necessary within the country. Again the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a debate subsequently on the 3rd April, came along and put forward exactly the same viewpoint bearing out what he had previously said on the 21st March. I am not going to weary the House by reading quotations from the various statements which the Minister made. The first quotation is adequate because the others followed on exactly the same lines.

It seems to me that, even taking the Minister at his own assessment, the question to be considered here is whether this money can be laid out to best advantage in this scheme or in another scheme. I think that there are many other home investment projects, if there is difficulty in financing all our capital development, which would be far more desirable. It would be far more desirable to expand the production of our land, to expand the building of houses, to expand internal production rather than risk £450,000 on a scheme that I personally believe, for reasons which I am going to show in a moment, will not have a chance of producing an adequate return. The simple issue in regard to this scheme, looking at it entirely objectively, is whether this is the best method of investing this money. As I understand the arrangement that is being entered into between Aer Línte and Seaboard and Western Company, Limited, which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government described as the most successful in the world, but which has been operating, so far as we can understand from the Minister, freight services only——

Mr. Lemass

Freight services over the Atlantic.

Mr. Sweetman

Yes, so far as the Atlantic is concerned. It seems therefore to be a service in which the experience that it has gained is not necessarily the type of experience at all that is required for the proposed service. The difficulty I really see, however, is that we have got in this scheme the wrong end of the stick. There might be a case for the development of a service such as this, even if it was not going to be a paying proposition, if we were to have the expenditure in sterling and receipts in dollars, if we were going to show perhaps a loss on the profit and loss statement when converted to sterling, if it would mean that there would be an expenditure in sterling and an income in dollars. It seems to me however that exactly the reverse is going to happen. The heavy end of all the expenditure in regard to this service is going to be in booking, publicity and so forth in America. That is expenditure that Aer Línte will have to deal with and that is expenditure which we shall have to incur in dollars. There will not be the same comparative necessity for advertising and booking expenditure at this end. I accept readily that if people are already in this country and want to fly from this country to America they are more likely than not to fly by a line that is operated in the Aer Línte-Aer Lingus tie-up.

So far as expenditure on publicity in Ireland is concerned it is going to be a trifling amount. It will, of course, be sterlng expenditure. It seems to me that, in order to provide a proper number of fare paying passengers coming from the far side, we are going to have to develop publicity and booking in a substantial way in America, all of which will have to be done with a dollar content. So far as I can understand from the details which have been given to us by the Minister, there is no provision in this charter — because that is really all it is, I think, a charter of the planes — that there will be any feeding service, or that there will be any booking tie-up by Seaboard and Western to help to fill the planes when they are chartered by Aer Línte. That seems to me to be a fundamental objection to the agreement as such.

I would have thought that the Minister when opening this debate would have given us some information about Seaboard and Western itself. Have Seaboard and Western got substantial accommodation in Idlewild? I presume the Minister will confirm that I am right in thinking that, so far as the service is concerned, it will be going into Idlewild Airport and not to New York or La Guardia. I should like to know what accommodation they have in that airport, or are we going to have to get accommodation for ourselves there, and, if so, what it is going to cost us? Is it going to be availible in any substantial way, or is it proposed that we will get Seaboard and Western, or some other agency, to act as agents for us in the airport where these planes will operate? It would seem to me that, unless you have a satisfactory service at the airport, and a satisfactory service in New York and Boston, you are not going to have any hope of getting traffic, and that it is almost impossible to get a service adequate and satisfactory at the airport which could be sufficiently carried as an overhead by a schedule of the type which the Minister has indicated.

I have no figures at all of the cost of running offices in the airport, whether in Boston or in New York. So far as running at this end is concerned, I do not think it matters because it is going to be a sterling expenditure for us, but, to have any reasonable prospect of getting traffic, we must provide a proper service. The term "service" does not mean the schedule of planes, but facilities by way of information, advice, booking facilities and so forth.

One of the prime things, in my view, against the success of this or any other transatlantic service for us is that all our overheads on booking and servicing, from the passenger end, are going to be set off against the schedules that are running for this country. So far as the other airlines are concerned, they are able to dilute their overheads because the proportion of their overheads that is assessable to the transatlantic line is only a proportion. I am speaking entirely from the passenger end, when I say that the same personnel could largely service not merely a transatlantic schedule alone but the schedules that are coming from other countries and going to other countries.

It is an axiom of business that one of the first things you have to do in any business is to ensure that your overheads can be adequately diluted and adequately spread over as large an area of business as possible. This agreement makes that utterly impossible for us. When I say this agreement makes it impossible, I want to say that this agreement, so far as it has been disclosed by the Minister, makes it utterly impossible. I think we would have been entitled, when asked to risk £450,000 of the taxpayers' money, to have been given information on that score: to have been given information as regards the dollar content of expenditures, apart from the sterling content, so that we could make up our minds that, even if it was not going to be a book-keeping profit or loss, we would know that it would be in a currency profit or currency loss.

As far as I could understand from the Minister yesterday, he estimated that we would have to get 50 per cent. of all the traffic going to and from this country for it to be a success. The Official Debates are not, of course, yet available, and one can only depend on what appears in the Press this morning. The Press report confirms the impression I got from the Minister's figures yesterday. He estimated that the total number of passenger flights would be 17,000. That would be both ways. It might be 8,500 passengers doing the double flight, or 9,000 going one way and 8,000 going another way. But, next year, he estimated that that figure of 17,000 would go up to 20,000, and that we had to get more than 10,000 of that number in order to show a profit. Where I found myself completely unable to follow the Minister's figures was when he said that, if the numbers dropped below 10,000, they would show a loss of £48,000. Surely, we are not going from the red into the black at the 10,000 figure. I understood the Minister to say that 13,000 passengers would show a profit of some £16,000.

Mr. Briscoe

A profit of £64,000.

Mr. Lemass

The estimated number of passengers for next year is between 20,000 and 25,000.

Mr. Sweetman

I understood the Minister to say it was 20,000. Was the figure £16,000 or £60,000?

Mr. Briscoe

£64,000.

Mr. Sweetman

Over here it sounded like £16,000. If we are losing £48,000 at fewer than 10,000 passengers and making £60,000 at 13,000 passengers, the balancing position is probably somewhere about 11,500 which is 50 per cent. of an expanded passenger flight number up by more than 25 per cent. on this year. I wonder is the Minister wise in making his estimate that there will be an increase of 25 per cent. in the current year?

Mr. Lemass

There was a 70 per cent. increase this year.

Mr. Sweetman

Yes, but I imagine that it is one of those things which is subject to the law of diminishing returns. I came back at the end of September from New York and Deputy Briscoe came back shortly after me. I came back on a tourist flight. There were 64 seats on the plane and I was one of 13 passengers. I made inquiries from the personnel of that flight and I was told by them that that had been the regular experience for the whole of the previous three weeks, that they were flying practically empty to Europe and coming back reasonably full. If that is to be the position at that time of the year, and I gather the position will be the reverse in the earlier period, then in the beginning of the season you will have your tourist flights reasonably full coming from America and your planes going back to America pretty empty and in the late time of the season you will have your planes from America coming pretty empty and going back perhaps reasonably full, but under this arrangement we will have to pay on a charter basis per flight and therefore we will be in the position, because of the fact that the traffic will be so much a one-way traffic at a particular time of the year, that we will be running flights even at peak periods at a very great loss.

The Minister will agree at once that the reason it is possible for Aer Lingus to operate so successfully is because it has a pretty static type of passenger flights, that when increased schedules are necessary you do not have the necessity for them in a one-way direction. You have your peak period, of course. At certain times of the year you have a very much greater demand for air travel between this country and Great Britain and France, but when you have that demand it is a double-way demand. The real objection to tourist fares traffic on the transatlantic line is that it is a demand which rises in a one-way direction. In the early part of the season it is all from west to east and in the late part of the season it is all from east to west. No matter how you do it, if you are to operate solely on a transatlantic basis, then you will get an overload on your expenses by flights which are necessary to bring aircraft back again to pick up the peak one-way traffic, and that overload of overheads will inevitably wash out any anticipation of profit so long as you are operating a transatlantic service alone.

As I understand the agreement, which is not before us and we have to depend entirely on the Minister's explanation, we are bound to pay so much per flight. We are bound to charter planes within a certain limited schedule, two being the minimum and six the maximum. But we are not entitled, I take it, to say that we want in the first week of May to charter six planes coming from America and only to charter two going back, because that would obviously be a difficulty from the operating point of view. As I see it, in order to get a passenger payload on the percentages which the Minister has given we shall need to charter planes to bring passengers here in the early part of the year and to charter planes to bring them home in the later part of the year, but we will not have a hope of putting passengers in them sufficient to bear any reasonable portion of the expense.

I thought the Minister would have given us some indication of the Irish landings by the present services. As I understand the position as it is at present at Shannon airport two or three passengers get off a plane and the remaining passengers go on to London, Paris, Rome, etc. The effect of this arrangement, if it is to be successful at all, is that those two or three passengers will not get off those planes but will, so to speak, all be sandwiched into the Seaboard and Western planes. Unless we can sandwich them into the Seaboard and Western planes there is no hope of reaching the figures which the Minister indicated. I think the Minister will agree that that is a fair assumption. That means that we will get the other companies out of the habit of touching at Shannon airport at all. They will not do that unless they have got passengers to disembark, or unless it will pay them. During a substantial portion of the year it is possible for planes to come across the Atlantic without touching at Gander, particularly in the periods of the year when there are the light passenger loads to which I have referred coming from west to east, although very often coming direct from New York. They do not touch Gander at all. There is a very great danger in this proposal that by sandwiching the passengers that, make these other airlines take in Shannon as a port of call, they will drop Shannon as a port of call. In consequence we will be losing the substantial benefit that we got in respect of the customs free airport through these passengers who are merely in transit, and who have touched down at Shannon because the plane goes there. While there may be a benefit in one direction there will be a greater loss in the other.

I would like also the Minister to have made it clear whether he has considered the very great risk that there is in this scheme that Shannon will be dropped as a port of call by Pan American, K.L.M. and T.W.A. in consequence of this scheme. If the Minister's scheme is to be successful — personally I do not think it will — it must be successful on the basis of taking out the odd passenger that would get off those lines at Shannon in a through trip to London, Paris or Rome. Taking them off would mean that Shannon would be dropped as a port of call from their lines.

Apart from that, I would like the Minister to have given us some indication of what this will mean as a saving or as a loss in regard to the estimate on the upkeep of Shannon. There is no use trying to consider air services purely on the basis of the costings of the operating company. We have had to invest a very substantial sum in Shannon and we have spent a substantial current sum in meteorological and other ground services at Shannon airport. What additional cost will this involve? We must know that cost and add it to the Book of Estimates that will be published and apart from the Aer Línte Company cost, using that word to cover the £457,000 that is involved.

The Minister should have given us some indication in regard to all these things. I do not think this scheme will show any prospect of getting a profit on it within a reasonable period of time. Nobody would suggest for a moment that you should judge the success of a scheme on the profit it makes in the first year, the second or the third year, but I do not think it will ever show a profit. It will mean, instead, that we are going to risk one of the distinct advantages we have at present that Shannon is a port of call. If we suffer that loss, that other services are not going to make it a stop, we will purchase very, very dearly indeed any prestige we may get under the scheme that is involved here.

When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government was speaking he said that all airlines running transatlantic services paid. I asked him for the figures. Deputy Briscoe promised he would give them. I hope he will and that, when he is giving them, he will give the breakdown of the overhead, because it is on the breakdown of the overhead that the transatlantic line will fail to be a proposition. Other airlines are able to dilute their overheads by having services to various other parts, so that when the personnel are not necessary for the transatlantic part of the service they are equally able to do work in other respects. They are also able to do something that is perhaps even more important; they are able to ensure that their other services operate as feeders.

There is no suggestion given to us by the Minister anywhere that there will be any feeder tie-in in regard to this agreement. So far as obtaining passengers in the United States is concerned, we are going to go out on our own to get the traffic. In order to go out and get it we will have to spend valuable dollars. The traffic that is going to go from this country will to a large extent go in sterling. We will have to ensure that there is a substantial expenditure with a very, very doubtful prospect of success. We are going to do that at a time when the Minister himself and his colleagues have said, not once but many times, that one of the difficulties that is facing them is that they cannot see clearly how they will be able to find sufficient funds to finance the capital investment programme.

Is that not a foolish time at which to risk this £450,000 when it is clear and obvious that there are other items of capital investment at home in which this money could be invested with benefit to the Irish people? That, I suggest, is the proper, objective basis upon which to judge this agreement. On that it fails. On any estimate of profits over a long-term period it will fail, because there will not be the arrangements for feeding and there will not be the arrangements for dilution of overhead on transatlantic services which other services and other companies have. It is on that basis that it will be of no real value. It merely means that we will be subsidising at home other people who want to fly. There are other companies that can do it, because they are able to dilute; we cannot do that. Therefore, we would be very much better advised to keep this money at home, to invest it at home, to invest it in such a way that it would increase our production. By doing that, we would bring much greater wealth in the long run to our people than by doing what the Minister has proposed to the House.

Mr. Larkin

It appears to me that when the Minister is in his most amenable form and appealing for an objective discussion, one must be most careful to examine the proposition he is putting up. The discussion so far has been very objective — even the Minister will agree to that — but it is interesting for me to find him lightly brushing to one side all that went before, and suggesting that we should make a new start and forget the controversy which took place in 1948.

We can do that on certain conditions. Those of us who recall that controversy and the reasons why the Constellations were sold at the time also recall that no more unscrupulous and lying campaign was carried on by Fianna Fáil over that incident than has gone on in this country over a long number of years. But we are prepared to forget that now and start anew. If we intend to discuss the present proposition objectively and on the basis that all of us are anxious to see our economy as a whole developed both internally and in its external associations, and while objective criticism is put forward, it would be as well to ensure that what happened before will not happen again and that we will not have the Minister if he fails to carry conviction in this debate coming in again and pursuing the same line because, if that happens, we cannot deal with problems like this now or at any future time.

In so far as the present proposal is concerned it is noticeable that in this morning's Press the keynote struck by the Minister is the keynote picked upon in the Press. We will have a transatlantic air service and the taxpayers will not have to pay for it. That, of course, is a lot of tripe. First of all, the money we will use will be the taxpayers' money. I understand that the profit on the sale of the Constellations and the original capital loaned has now been made available to the Government as an interest free loan. If we are proposing to provide a sum of £450,000 as our stake in this gamble the money will have to be provided by the State either in the form of a book-keeping transaction, which sooner or later will have to be made good, or in the form of an allocation of some of the money raised in the national loan or out of our actual income from taxation. Wherever it will come from, it is the taxpayers' money and, if it goes down the drain, it is the taxpayers who will lose. We should make that quite clear.

This is not a question of a group of philanthropists coming along with £450,000 and prepared to speculate that sum on the chance that they can provide us with a transatlantic airline. It is we who are doing the speculating and, apart from the question of the merits of the agreement about which we have got merely a broad description from the Minister, there is the condition already referred to in the debate as to the justification of utilising this money in this particular manner in the circumstances which the Minister states on behalf of his Government have existed here for some considerable time past.

Secondly, there is the agreement itself and all that it implies. It is quite clearly difficult for any ordinary Deputy to try and evaluate the business basis of the agreement. We have been given merely a number of broad figures, the number of schedules, the minimum optimum schedules, the broad estimates, the figures for passenger flights over the last couple of years, the estimate for the coming year, the cost per charter of each flight and the round figures we will be required to meet in so far as our share of the cost of the traffic is concerned for the purpose of either breaking with a profit or breaking with a loss.

Deputy Sweetman, possibly because of his experience as a transatlantic passenger, has been able to go into some more detail than most of us. Possibly other Deputies may be able to do likewise. It occurs to me, and I am still open to conviction in regard to the merits of the agreement, that if there is a gamble in this it is one of the biggest gambles into which anybody has ever been asked to enter. We are being asked to come in on a charter basis into one of the most competitive fields of international air traffic with planes which, while they are safe and probably quite comfortable and quite suitable for various types of passenger traffic, are quite definitely already outmoded.

It is important to bear in mind that when any of us thinks of taking a flight in a plane, even though we are satisfied we will be quite safe, we always get a personal satisfaction out of saying that we travelled in the most up-to-date, modern and scientific plane available. That is all part of the advertising. Here we intend to develop this particular line with a flight of Skymasters, chartered planes, that are even at the moment already lagging behind in their technical development and will be much further behind before this agreement reaches its conclusion. We will enter into this competitive traffic against companies that have not only had long experience over the years and not merely built up their own fleet but have also built up their own advertising and passengercollecting agencies. They have done that not merely over a considerable period but during a period in which they have been in a position to acquire very valuable experience. We are going to take these people on as competitors and we will do so on the basis that we will take from them one-half of the traffic originating or completing air journeys here in Ireland. To put it mildly, I feel it is a little bit optimistic.

Thirdly, we will do that on the basis of providing a tourist type of ticket. In connection with some of the figures given by the Minister, the plea was made that in replying to the debate he should give us a breakdown of some of them. Quite clearly, when we are speaking of total passenger flights in and out of this country of 16,000 or 17,000 during the present year, rising to 25,000 next year, we must remember that that traffic is made up of various types of flights. All the passengers are not tourist passengers. Some of them will remain first-class passengers. Some will continue to travel on the most luxurious type of plane available. Therefore, of a possible 25,000 passenger flights next year only a certain percentage will be tourist, and it is only 50 per cent. of that certain percentage that we will get.

These are some of the factors that occur to me. These are the factors which throw a good deal of doubt into my mind as to the wisdom of the Minister's proposition. Frankly, I am not convinced that even the Minister himself thinks this is a good proposition. It is remarkable that he skated over a great deal of thin ice and that he left a number of questions unanswered. In dealing with propositions like this we can recognise that possibly there are certain parts of the agreement that it might be difficult to make public and, therefore, we have to take a good deal of what is told to us on the assurance of a responsible Minister. From that point of view, if we were dealing with the proposition in a vacuum and purely as a business proposition, a great many of us would be prepared to follow it but we cannot deal with it in a vacuum and there are many aspects of it in relation to which we are entitled to ask for consideration.

I pointed out that the amount of money we will make available is the taxpayers' money. It is a sum that is either there available or it will have to be found. Quite clearly, if we are thinking in terms of spending that money we must justify that expenditure. This is not like a man going into a bookie's office and putting down a dollar on a horse for a win. This is a kind of cumulative bet. We will put down £450,000. The Minister says that if that is lost, then the State will not be asked to provide any more money. That will be the finish. I wonder will that guarantee be still alive in three or four years' time. We will then have had the line operating for three or three and a half years. The money will be gone. Will we then have the propaganda machine starting to churn up the idea that we have made our beginning; that it is true that we lost a certain amount of money; that we cannot now go back and that we must dig in and fight and put up still more money? It is all very well giving an assurance now. We have had many assurances from Fianna Fáil in the past and Fianna Fáil has a most uncanny knack of being able to change its position and yet convince itself that it never did change.

If the project, on the other hand, is a success, it will be a success on the basis of an Irish airline established with chartered planes. At the moment they are Skymasters. Under the agreement, they will be replaced in a certain period by Constellations. By that time the other airlines will be replacing the Constellations with jet planes, turbo prop, or something else. Then we shall probably be told that we made a success of this venture, that we have not lost the £450,000, that now we have our feet on the ground we must get in and equip our line with our own planes. A sum of £1,400,000 was lost on this venture the last time: what will be lost in three or four years' time in order to equip that charter line with planes to meet the then competition will, I imagine, run into the neighbourhood of millions of pounds. I am convinced that once this agreement comes into operation, no matter what the outcome, we will not be able to let go unless it collapses so quickly within 12 or 18 months that no attempt whatever will be made to cloak up the complete failure. If, however, it meets with any reasonable degree of success, we shall be told either that we must continue to subsidise it for a further period or, alternatively, we shall be told that we have tested our ability to run a transatlantic airline, that we have been able to get a certain percentage of the traffic, that we cannot continue to operate with charter planes and that we must now provide our own capital equipment for our own line. That means that we shall have to find large sums of money for the purchase of equipment.

To my mind, these are all entailed in our decision as to whether or not we endorse this agreement. That is why I feel that it is not correct to ask us to discuss this project in vacuo— purely from the point of view of whether the agreement is a businesslike agreement from our standpoint, whether it will provide us with a reasonable opportunity of getting into this international air traffic on the basis of not having to commit ourselves at too great cost at the beginning and, at the end of three or four years, to see what the future possibilities are. As I see it, and it seems to be quite definite as far as the information available from the Minister is concerned, the agreement itself is a most highly speculative undertaking in which — I am speaking subject to correction — most of the cards are stacked against us. I do not agree with Deputy Sweetman that Irish men and women who want to travel to America will automatically travel on a plane which has a tricolour flag and a saint's name on it. I think the Minister is the last person to fall for that particular line of argument. For years past he has been carrying on what, I agree, has been a herculean effort to try and convince our own people to buy Irish goods — Irish goods equal in quality to those which are imported and equal in price. It has been a very difficult and uphill struggle. I am a bit cynical when I think of somebody leaving Dublin and travelling down to Shannon to make a trip across the Atlantic, tourist class, on a Skymaster plane — which, I understand, is not pressurised — when, alternatively, he can travel tourist class in one of the most up-to-date planes of another company.

I feel that a great many of our people will react in the same way in regard to the transatlantic air flights as they do when they go shopping. We know the position in regard to Irish goods. We know that it is not merely a question of price or quality: there is also the question of the build-up, the name, the reputation and the brand of the goods. Everywhere you go in this country people will talk to you quite casually about T.W.A., Pan-American, K.L.M. and other such air companies. These names, as a result of advertising, now mean a great deal. It will require much more than the patriotic interest of Irish men and women who will cross the Atlantic to convince them — to the extent of at least 50 per cent. of that traffic next year — that they should travel by this Irish airline in preference to any other airline.

Another aspect of the matter is of equal importance. I pointed out in the beginning that if we are to get objective discussion on projects such as this it must be accepted that when there is objective criticism it is not criticism merely for the sake of opposition or for the sake of taking an advantage. It must be borne in mind that we are all interested in developing Irish economy and Irish prestige and that that is not some special type of inheritance of the Fianna Fáil Party. It must be borne in mind that there are other people in this country equally interested in these matters. I am still somewhat doubtful as to the main purpose of entering into this agreement. It seems quite clear to me that for a long time to come we cannot, under the most favourable circumstances, expect anything in the way of a profit on our investment. Therefore, there must be some other intangible attractions and probably we shall hear about them in the course of the debate. I think it is quite clear that one of the attractions is the question of national prestige — and let us not beat about the bush. We have no objection to it: nobody has any objection to building up the prestige of this country internationally so long as we understand what we are trying to do and what we mean by prestige. I do not see much prestige in putting a fur coat on a skeleton.

Captain Cowan

You often see it.

Mr. Larkin

Neither do I think that there is prestige in flying the tricolour round the world. I recall a phrase which was in use a few years ago: I think it originated in the Fianna Fáil Party. It was: "Green pillar-boxes for green people." They know what the reference is. There is a good deal of the same psychology in this connection. Let us leave aside for a moment the question of the investment of money inside the country — whether it be on a capital project to provide work for the people, and so forth. If we have money to spend or to invest is there not something much more necessary and urgent than an international airline to America? A short while ago I sought some information from the Taoiseach and the Minister in regard to the operations of our Irish mercantile marine both deep-sea and coast-wise. I also sought some figures indicating the nationality, the registration of the ships, deep-sea and coast-wise, that were carrying goods into and out of our country. The figures were not complete in all cases because the statistics were not available but such figures as were given were not something to take pride in. If we have a sum of £450,000 and we want to build up our national prestige and, at the same time, to justify the expenditure, it would be a lot better to spend that money on buying a number of the smaller types of steamers to engage in our coast-wise traffic — boats that can get in and out of our small ports — and not have Dutch coast-wise steamers trading around the Irish coast and carrying on the trade that we should be doing to such an extent that, even now, they are seriously affecting some of the small number of Irish-owned and Irish-registered ships engaged in that trade. If we feel that the coast-wise trade does not display our flag sufficiently, why not spend the money on getting a few more boats for Irish shipping — boats that can engage in deep-sea trade — and why not build one of those boats in our own Dublin dockyard? On the basis of what was indicated in the Dáil a week or so ago in connection with the difficulty which the Irish shipbuilding industry has to face in regard to extra prices, why not use some of the £450,000 to subsidise the Irish——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy seems to be straying from the Estimate, which deals with aviation.

Mr. Larkin

I am dealing with the money.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot have a discussion on shipping on this Estimate. The Deputy might refer to it in passing but a discussion on the Dublin shipyard has nothing whatever to do with the Estimate.

Mr. Larkin

I have passed from it now. In 1948, when the arguments were developing in regard to a transatlantic airline, one of the viewpoints was that in existing circumstances we could not afford or justify such a large investment in that particular enterprise. We should recall the description of conditions then, a description formulated by Fianna Fáil. In 1947 statements were made by the Taoiseach and by the present Minister dealing with the economic situation. We have now a repetition of exactly the same thing. For the past 18 months it has been dinned into our ears that we are faced with very great difficulties. On top of that there is a very large body of unemployed men and women and the figures have markedly increased during the present year.

While I am quite prepared to look at this agreement from the point of view of national prestige — establishing international channels for our people travelling forward and backward between here and America, the value it is to businessmen and the value in connection with international relations — I have no hesitation in saying that if, as it is clear to me, we are being asked to gamble £450,000 on this project, I would far sooner gamble the same sum of money in what may seem to be something of an appeal to mob instincts — I would sooner gamble it on the basis of putting 1,000 unemployed men into work at £5 each per week for 90 weeks. Even if we never get a penny return out of it, it amounts to the same thing. We spend money on the basis of the agreement.

If the agreement turns out to be a success, we will immediately have to decide whether we are going to continue either on the basis of acquiring our own planes or entering into a new agreement with the charter company. Alternatively, we may find partial success and it may be suggested we should spend more money until the venture is put squarely on its feet. Once we start to spend money on this that will not be the end of the commitments. We will be tied to something which we will have great difficulty in letting go, particularly if at the end of the period when the matter comes up for review, we are still having the picture presented to us by the Fianna Fáil Government, who will feel they have to stand over their brain child, no matter what the circumstances are. It is a gamble as a business proposal and from the national viewpoint of trying to get into international air traffic. Quite clearly, under present circumstances, if we can lay our hands on that money, we are not justified in gambling it at the present time, with so many urgent calls from our own people here at home many of whom are suffering in a very dire manner because of the existing conditions, leaving aside the question of blame or responsibility for those conditions.

We will not get any benefit from the freight carrying as a result of the agreement? Well we will have a possibility of our freight being carried by plane and we may come later to discuss as to where we stand regarding the international convention that exists, both with regard to the fixing of passenger rates and also of freight rates. That has not been touched on at all. We all know that the air companies belong to an association and carry out an arrangement whereunder they do not undercut each other. The particular planes that will be chartered to us under this agreement will be in the beginning solely tourist passenger planes. The number of passengers to be carried is, of course, problematical; it can only be a guess, but the schedule arrangement for the planes — to make two round trips a week, three a week or six a week at the height of the season — does not mean that these planes will be full or that they will be empty. That is something which cannot be arranged because people cannot be marshalled into the position in which they will fly when it suits the company. They will fly when it suits themselves.

However, I am not as pessimistic as Deputy Dillon was in 1947, when he said here:

"I am bound to say that I believe the thing is largely a cod... I venture to swear that five years from to-day when the rabbits start playing leapfrog below in Rineanna, the masts which are to direct the radio to the United States of America will be converted into knitting machines to knit the wool off the rabbits of Rineanna."

He might possibly talk law to us, but not aviation.

Mr. S. Collins

You are getting rattled very easily this morning.

You will get full support for that idea.

Mr. Briscoe

I have made the suggestion and I hope to see it considered. It may be possible that Aer Lingus could second to this charter company, as the Army seconds to Aer Lingus, pilots on occasion, who could get back to their employment if, as Deputy Larkin says, the scheme fails, or they are not suitable, but at least it would give an opportunity to our people to become efficient operators on this run.

Deputy Sweetman talked of his own experience in flying. This State sold its Constellations to B.O.A.C. and they were put on the Australian run. I saw a statement issued by B.O.A.C. that they had made £1,000,000 profit from these Constellations on the Australian run. Deputy Sweetman questioned my statement that all companies operating on the transatlantic route made a profit. They may have made a loss in their over-all operations and some of the profit made on the transatlantic run may have had to be used to subsidise inland or other runs. We have the same situation here, because we have the City of Dublin buses making a profit and subsidising the loss on the railways, but nobody denies that the buses in the City of Dublin are making a profit.

I wonder whether the Minister will take the opportunity provided by the effort to give a new lease of life to the transatlantic service from Ireland to give some consideration to the terminal building at Shannon. That terminal building is not suitable for the amount of traffic that goes through. I think the Minister mentioned that himself. It is a temporary shack of wood. Deputy Morrissey in this House, in view of the change of policy in 1948, admitted that under the circumstances then existing it was not worth while considering the erection of a proper building but it will become necessary, if our hopes in regard to the additional development of the air service take place, to have extra passenger services beginning and ending so far as this country is concerned at Shannon. Some serious consideration would have to be given to the question of providing accommodation of a permanent nature. Something will have to be done in regard to the terminal building.

Deputy Sweetman spoke at length on what he calls the "peak tourist period", when you have planes coming in in one direction full and going back almost empty. That is inevitable. There are seasons of the year when all the traffic is inwards. The same can be said in relation to attractions, such as the Horse Show, but when the end of the season arrives and when the attractions are over, all the traffic is again outwards and the planes or ships come back empty to bring the people back. In the calculation of the charges for travelling that must be taken into consideration. Incidentally, overheads must also be taken into consideration. Deputy Sweetman seemed to think that you fix a passenger rate and that everybody goes out and nobody comes back. The matter balances itself out. People who come from America will go home and people who have gone from here to America as tourists will come back. At all events you cannot expect anything other than that you will have a falling-off one way or another.

I would like to draw Deputy Sweetman's attention to the fact that the company in whose plane he travelled and which came back light, as far as passengers were concerned, was a company which, by its undertaking to hold its licence for this type of flight, has to keep to a certain schedule. It may even be included in the schedule to have planes travelling even though there were no passengers or just one. That is because of the kind of licence they hold to travel.

You can take it outside. All over the world people are becoming more air-minded. The development of air traffic is on the upgrade all the time. We have only to look at the development in Aer Lingus to see that. A lot of talk has been indulged in about the possibility of loss. Aer Lingus lost a lot of money until it got to its present position. I do not hear Deputy Larkin crying out about that. He would be the first to cry out if it was suggested that Aer Lingus should be put out of business. Aer Lingus is a very good institution. It proved itself to be a success. It has a most efficient personnel from top to bottom and is now making a profit. Is it not possible to conclude that the success which has attended Aer Lingus will also attend the transatlantic air service or must we condemn it as it was condemned in 1948 and now? Surely to goodness it is worth while for us to see whether we can make as good a success of the transatlantic air service as has been made of Aer Lingus.

The agreement is between two parties — the Seaboard and Western Airlines and Aer Línte. Aer Línte hold a licence from this international body to run a transatlantic service but the Seaboard and Western Airlines do not hold any such licence. Possibly if they applied for one they could not get one. I do not think any new licences would be granted. On the other hand, if Aer Línte does not operate its licence after a certain period the licence is cancelled and then we are out altogether.

Mr. Larkin

The gloom is lightening now a bit.

Mr. Davin

The fog is disappearing.

Mr. Briscoe

That is what I am telling the Deputies. I happen to know that this licence carries with it certain obligations and that you cannot hold a licence in that particular set-up and not operate it. There must be a time when people will say: "Let somebody else in". Obviously, there is room for another line.

Mr. Larkin

That is a most important piece of information.

Mr. Briscoe

It is the information I am giving you but whether the Minister will confirm it or not is another matter. You have Seaboard and Western Airlines and Aer Línte. Neither of them want to enter into an arrangement where there is hope of some development if there is going to be danger of serious loss. When each paragraph in the agreement was being discussed each side realised that they would have to be as modest as possible. The Minister stated in the House that the limit of his loss would be £450,000. The company cannot afford to lose from its resources. Therefore, we have an arrangement made whereunder the first consideration shall be when will we run these planes.

We charter these planes on an estimated number of passengers to be carried and we pay them so much per round trip. I do not think that that will be the beginning and end of it as far as Seaboard and Western are concerned. They provide the crews. They pay the crews. Do we know what problems they will have with their crews? Do we know whether their estimate is correct or not about their own employment situation? Do we know what their problems will be in servicing, renewals and repairs of planes? Is not that their problem? Obviously they will have some expense in that connection.

Mr. S. Collins

I will swear that they have allowed a reasonable margin for that.

Mr. Rooney

There is £2,000 for that.

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy Rooney says there is £2,000 that will pay for that. In a year?

Mr. Rooney

No, per flight.

Mr. S. Collins

They are getting 5,000 odd dollars per flight.

Mr. Briscoe

I would suggest to the House that so long as Aer Línte was left in existence by our predecessors, so long as they had this money available, so long as there was a great number of people in the country who believed that we should continue our attempt to make as a permanent feature of the life of this country the extension of our aviation services to include a transatlantic air service we should try to develop the service even though it was impossible to consider the establishment of the service on the basis on which it had been considered before, when we had in fact bought our own planes and were in a position to employ all the crew from beginning to end and run the services exclusively under the control of this Irish company.

Mr. Briscoe

I did not read the agreement. I want to protest against the disorderly suggestion that I had seen this agreement which is a State document. I want the Deputy to be asked to withdraw that statement.

Mr. Davin

It is a tribute to your influence.

Mr. Dillon

Or perhaps one mailbag and the mailbag may contain only one postcard. Mails are not deemed to be freight as far as I know. If the Deputy has something to say about mails he might have a helpful suggestion to make to the Minister. But now we know the true genesis of this air agreement. It is, according to Deputy Briscoe, the desperate and necessary step to prevent the operating licence lapsing without the prospect of renewal. That immediately explains to us why the agreement is not fit for public perusal and why those parts of it which have been revealed are of so remarkably one-sided a character.

The position is that we are to undertake not only the losses here envisaged, but that we are to become engaged in an enterprise, the annual losses of which will become a charge on the Exchequer of this country. We must remember this, that whenever there is a charge on the Exchequer it has to be paid from somewhere. Every single one of these charges is introduced into this House by the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Social Welfare, the Minister for Health or the Minister for Education. Each Minister has to come into the House with his charge which has to be paid, and there is only one source from which to get it, and that is the land. The only way the land can get the means to pay is by selling its produce not on a protected market but on the most competitive, free-trade market in the world.

Then I will address the question to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and ask him to be kind enough to give us that figure for the last ten years so that Deputies may appreciate the significance of the points made by more than one Deputy in the course of the debate. It is not £450,000 we are talking about losing; it is the entry into a commitment which will certainly develop into an annual charge which must ultimately be met out of the profits earned on the land and from which it will be extremely difficult to withdraw once it has been established as part of our annual services.

I want to make another point which came as a revelation to me. For 18 months or more I have listened to hysterics from the Fianna Fáil Party as to how the Constellations were sold and the proceeds dissipated. The Minister for Finance told us that every hen roost was robbed, that there was not a penny in the Exchequer, that he was at his wits' end as to how to pay the civil servants. Now we discover to our amazement that there was £1,450,000 in reserve which came into our hands in 1948. While we were supposed to be robbing every hen roost, scattering the people's substance, leaving not a penny unspent anywhere, it appears that we put £1,450,000 on one side on which the Minister for Industry and Commerce now can put his hand and without levying a penny on the Exchequer, according to his own tale, enter into all the commitments of this agreement with the assurance that it will cost nobody anything, because, as he said, "my predecessor, the former Minister for Industry and Commerce, left £1,450,000 on one side which was lent to the Exchequer free of interest and now the Exchequer is just paying it back and as a result we can enter into these commitments without risking one penny of the taxpayers' money."

How do these two stories hang together? Why did the Minister campaign the whole country and persuade the members of his own Party that their predecessors in office dissipated the public store, plundered every reserve, squandered every available penny and then ramble in here casually and say: "We propose to enter into commitments amounting to £450,000, but it will cost nobody anything because our predecessors in office laid it on one side and had it there for us when we wanted to put our hands on it."

It is a fairly substantial annual charge. We have at least discovered now, thanks to the good offices of Deputy Briscoe, the real explanation. The Minister is salvaging his licence to operate and he is accepting what terms he can get. I think he is paying too high a price in this agreement for the purpose he has in mind. I think it is a foolish thing to dissipate the £1,450,000 that Deputy McGilligan laid by when he was Minister for Finance to meet some future emergency, more especially as I believe this investment will involve us in a recurrent annual loss which ultimately must come from the land. The Minister has said that he still retains an open mind. He is quite prepared to mend his hand even at this eleventh hour.

You mean the horse.

Mr. Burke

"My grandfather and my father used the horse and plough and I think the tractor would be bad for us." If that unprogressive outlook is to be the dominating factor in the approach of the Opposition to every proposal then I hope the country will realise the position. I hope the country will realise the attitude of the Opposition towards every progressive scheme or project of this nature. I will leave the Opposition to the judgment of the honest-to-God people of Ireland. Some day they will see where their short-sighted policy would lead us.

I wish the Minister good luck in his job. He is doing it well and Ireland will repay him.

Mr. S. Collins

I do not think that this discussion lends itself to the many gyrations that have taken place during its brief length. I think it is in the best interests of the situation, as it is presented to us by the Minister, to try and approach it basically and factually in an objective way. That is what tempted me in the course of the Minister's speech yesterday to ask a certain question. I do not think that we can completely divorce this present project from a previous project which was wound up by the Minister's predecessor in office. I think we can discuss it not on the basis of national unctuous balderdash such as was given to us by Deputy Burke, not in the spirit of the survival even of Shannon Airport, but purely on the question on what its economic potential is likely to be. I intend to demonstrate in a completely unimpassioned way the reasons for my doubts and for my saying that the Government should not proceed with this agreement. It is naive of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to come in here and to describe this sum of £457,000 — which accrued as a profit as a result of an investment of money directly obtained from the Exchequer — as not being the people's money. In fact, this is one of the few occasions on which I find the Minister for Industry and Commerce not his usual truculent, vehement, assertive self. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has conceived a technique of debate in which, where he has a grip of a problem and a belief in it, even if that belief is erroneous, he can give it that air of truculent assertiveness that can nearly sell a story. On this occasion that particular dominant feature of the Minister's approach is absent. I am suggesting in a realistic way to a man who is capable of a shrewd business assessment that he himself does not believe in this proposition which he has voiced to the House. I am quite sure that nobody is more aware than the Minister himself is of the many dangers and the many punitive clauses contained in this agreement to the detriment of the very venture. It seems chaotic to me.

Possibly the particular chaos that has arisen may find its reality in the unwitting and unguarded admission by Deputy Briscoe that this agreement was entered into in a difficult situation in which time was running against Aer Línte to maintain this transatlantic operational licence and in which the other party to the contract was aware of the difficulty and was, therefore, able to insist on terms that otherwise would not be considered. If that is so, I think we are very ill-advised and that it is a very ill-judged action to grasp at such an agreement. We have to analyse realistically the minimum number required to give each separate flight a pay load. We should be able to get a clear picture from the Minister as to what loads are likely to be attracted in seasonal peak periods and the likely minimum falling-off in the off-season period. We should have been able to get details to enable us to view this picture in its proper setting. We should know whether there will be a possibility of freight development, whether there will be a possibility of mail-carrying by this line from Ireland to America — whether there are other potentialities behind the bare passenger-carrying necessity — that might encourage us to believe not that this would ever be an economic success but that some day it might attain the stage of being even self-supporting. The Minister is well aware that what is vital to our consideration of this whole scheme is the real likelihood of passenger potential, the minimum number of people that will have to travel on a flight to make that flight remunerative, the periods of the year during which we are likely to have a sufficient number of passengers to make it remunerative and the likely balance in the first year and the second year as against loss. That cannot be done on the broad basis of an estimated figure. It will have to be broken down into the realistic position of letting us know exactly the likely cost per seat on these runs, the maximum carrying capacity of each Skymaster aircraft and whether there is any possibility of insufficiently-filled passenger planes being used to carry either a priority type of light freight mails, or other matters for transport, that might alleviate the strain of cost. If we want to give even a fair run to this scheme we must know these facts.

The agreement presents itself to me as a rather expedient type of agreement. It has all the characteristics of Aer Línte's being forced into a situation where its back was to the wall.

I am completely ad idem with Deputy Briscoe on one thing, that if we start such a project at all we should start it with Irish personnel. I am going to be fair to the Minister, as I believe the Minister did approach this problem himself in an effort to ensure that Irish personnel would operate these planes. The Minister might be frank to the House and explain to us what difficulties arose or what circumstances forced him to accept an agreement in which you had a hybrid situation, of Irish personnel operating one facet of the line and foreign pilots of God knows what nationality or origin operating the planes. It becomes of really serious import to the general situation and the general approach to the agreement to know what were the activating and motivating influences that caused that acceptance by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He himself, in his opening remarks, indicated that he was still in contact with many of the personnel who had been trained for transatlantic airflying and who had the certificates necessary and the recognition necessary to allow them to operate within the convention of the licence holder that was operating a transatlantic flight. What was the difficulty that prevented us chartering the planes as planes and operating them ourselves outside the actual charge hire for the planes? Was there any compelling factor that made it more useful to charter on the broad basis of incorporating maintenance personnel, flying personnel, supply personnel and all the various commitments in connection with fuel, spare-parts and so on? Was there some oppressive, weighty reason that forced us to accept that kind of proposition, as distinct from a proposition in which, if we had to charter planes, at least we would be able to develop and maintain the control and management, the general security and safety precautions of these planes ourselves?

That is the feature that is giving me most worry. I realise that there are two reasons, in the main, behind this scheme. There is a good deal of pique and maybe childish irritation in the Government that the 1948 scheme was scotched. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that a transatlantic airline owned and operated by an Irish company is never likely to be an economic success, never likely to be an enduring economic success, and for that reason the only way one might ever justify its establishment is that of prestige. We are very anxious — I myself personally, and I am quite sure most Deputies — for the development of national prestige where it comes within a reasonable ambit of what the country can afford; but can we envisage a situation where, particularly with the economic difficulties that exist at present, we can justify to the Irish people the seeking of such prestige at this moment and seeking it with transatlantic aircraft that, at their best, can be described as rapidly becoming obsolescent?

There is no doubt at all about it that if the supply of planes were readily available, even to the company with which we are entering into this charter agreement, to substitute alternative planes for the Skymaster, that they would in fact be substituted. From the safety angle alone — and it is time we stressed the safety angle alone — that would be done. Deputy Briscoe purports to know an awful lot about aircraft and I suppose that, with members of his family qualified in this line, he may have a family circle in which there is discussion on it; but he deliberately avoided some inherent dangers that must inevitably attach to Skymaster aircraft, particularly in off-season weather. They are not pressurised; we are told that; they cannot, if the emergency arises, make for the altitude that might get another type of plane out of difficulties that can arise.

It is true that they have a very airworthy and safe record in transatlantic work, but the tendency and the mind of people approaching air travel to-day can be safely summarised by saying they approach it to get the fastest, most modern and most up-to-date type of aircraft to carry them when they are spending their money on a fare to cross the Atlantic. I do not think that this particular type of plane will create that attraction. I certainly think that we are making a shabby entry into transatlantic air competition, if we are going to make an entry at all, by confining our efforts to the tourist class.

I was wondering if it were not possible for the Minister — even if he was forced into circumstances in which this type of agreement had to be entered into — to ensure at least a plane being made available that would give us a chance of competing in the top-class passenger trade, even if it were only to the extent of one run a week during the off season and two round trips a week during the peak season, thus giving us an opportunity to feel for ourselves in a real way the potential of the first-class passenger trade. There is no doubt about it, that with all the optimistic outlook in the world and with all the bright hopes that we can cherish, on a purely tourist basis we cannot expect to attract anything like the volume of traffic that the Minister says is necessary to make this venture a success. You have to remember that in the tourist season you will have to compete with all the various other companies using a more modern type of planes on tourist runs, too.

I am not taking the view, and never did, that we should damn a thing for the sake of damning it. I want to get from the Minister some kind of a realistic picture in facts and figures that might lead us to the conclusion that ultimately this could become an economic proposition. I would like to know from the Minister the real likelihood or the real probability regarding the date of delivery of the substitute Constellations for these Skymasters. I want to know from the Minister whether or not in the development of this project it is contemplated having a gradual infiltration of Irish personnel into the ranks of the pilots, operators and trained personnel that will operate these aircraft. I want to know if the State company entering into this contractual obligation has made the necessary arrangement whereby, as vacancies occur, there will be a preferential right to employment for Irish people in the replacement of crews.

This agreement, in general, presents such a lax and loose system of association that it becomes more and more apparent to me that it is of vital interest that the agreement should be revealed in its full significance. Instead of chartering each plane as the situation arises, we are taking a continuous charter which is to run over a number of years and in which we guarantee a minimum number of charters per week and are allowed to move up to a maximum number in the peak season. There is a penal clause in the agreement, as the Minister explained, whereby, if we neglect to do certain things, the axe comes down and we have to pay a fine of $100,000.

I pressed the Minister, and I now press him deliberately, to indicate if there are any safeguards for Aer Línte in this agreement. Is there an assurance that Seaboard and Western Airlines will not cut across whatever minor freight traffic they might be able to operate as an integral part of the passenger service and that Aer Línte will not be prevented specifically from going in for that type of development? Is there a counter-assurance that Seaboard and Western Airlines will not charter planes to a group of people who might ultimately be in opposition to Aer Línte? Let us conceive a situation in which the flight of the Gaels is reversed and a number of Irish people, for the purposes of some international competition or game — something like an All-Ireland Football Final or Hurling Final in America again. Could a situation arise in which Seaboard and Western Airlines could give one of their planes on charter in competition with what might be our tourist line of Skymasters.

All these matters enter into this and it must be analysed — I am trying to do it in a completely non-political way — as a business proposition. Unless these safeguards are there, the agreement will amount virtually to this: "We will allow you to operate our transatlantic operational licences and we will pay the piper." If we have not got safeguards of a very strong character to ensure that this is not a one-sided or lopsided agreement, the Minister should be frank and tell us so. If he does so and tells us that these safeguards are not there, the House will be able to look on this agreement in all its naked reality, as an expedient, ill-advised and ill-judged.

It is easy to say here that not a penny of the taxpayers' money is involved. This profit was made as a result of direct subvention of money from the Exchequer to Aer Rianta. The collective decision of the inter-Party Government was that there was not likely to be the potential for an airline, and at that time we were in a better position to judge than now, because there was less competition than now, but, as a result of their scotching the idea of transatlantic airline, a profit of £457,000 accrued to the Exchequer. That profit was made on the people's money and no method of calculation or tricky finance can alter the fact that it is a gain properly accruing to the benefit of the Exchequer in the circumstances which arose.

There is no doubt that, no matter how you may juggle with the idea of its being given back to the Exchequer interest free against a possible future contingency, it is the people's money, earned by way of profit from the investment of the people's money, because every penny piece of the money in Aer Rianta or in Aer Línte was, as the Minister told us, subscribed to the exclusion of the £1 or whatever was the stipulated figure to become a director of the company. No matter what name you give to it, there is going to be a subvention back to this venture of £457,000. Are we using that to the best advantage of the Irish people? That is a problem which is fundamental to the main and basic issue in this argument.

The Minister cannot — and, in fairness to him, let it be said that he did not — hold out any prospect of immense success for this scheme. It is going to be a kind of last fling to see whether it is possible to justify an international airline. I feel, and I say it not in any spirit of political opposition but in a spirit of seeking to estimate its business potential, that, if this scheme were to be operated at all, this is the very way it should not be operated. We are going into a highly competitive field, with not the most attractive type of aircraft, no matter what their safety record may be or what their airworthiness may be. We are going into a trade which is to be a tourist class trade only and which is not going to give you any real idea of the potentialities of a first-class passenger carrying business.

I want the Minister to say whether it was not possible, when negotiating the agreement, to ensure that, if most of the planes must operate on the tourist trade, there would have been some plane available for even one or two round trips per week so as to give us an indication of what the earning potential of first-class passenger operation on the best type of aircraft would be. I feel that this is ill-judged, ill-timed and ill-advised and that we are not doing justice to the idea itself. If Fianna Fáil and the Government believe in the concept of a transatlantic airline, surely they cannot believe that this is the best way to try to break into it?

If this conception is to be carried into effect as a plan it cannot be better done, I earnestly suggest to even the most rabid advocate of a transatlantic airline on the basis now suggested, a basis on which we have penal conditions attaching to our side of the contract, conditions whereby we have to supply all the personnel necessary in connection with booking, and so on, and pay the rents of offices here and there where we propose to establish ticket-selling bureaux. I can readily imagine that these will be necessary in New York, Boston, and perhaps other cities in the United States of America where there is a strong proportion of Irish people.

We have to undertake all that type of expenditure in connection with a limited type of service, consisting of tourist traffic only, with machines that I venture to suggest, not in any spirit of acrimony or criticism, will be less attractive even to tourist passengers. Like many other Deputies I have spent an occasional summer's evening at Shannon Airport watching planes coming and going. I have seen planes from the scheduled, highly-advertised, high sales-pressured passenger traffic de luxe planes down to the chartered planes of the type we are now discussing. These chartered planes arrive with loads of displaced people or people of that character. I have seen the contrasts between these different types of planes and I come into this House to make the suggestion in an earnest way to the Minister that if a beginning were to be made in this at all, it certainly should not be with the type of plane now contemplated. I would go so far as to say that there would be less opposition to an infinitely larger scheme providing for first-class, front-line, first-rate aircraft and for even greater expenditure, if that were to be Irish controlled, Irish manned, completely Irish in every way, taking the Irish flag, not on a charter basis, round the world but taking the Irish flag proudly embossed on the tails of these planes as a real emblem of an Irish company. I would have infinitely more sympathy with that type of project than this type of back-door project. I am not going to delay the Minister any longer except to say that I believe the Minister should review, and get all the assistance he might need to review this type of contract lest we allow expediency rule this situation and lead us to a commitment unworthy of the effort of any Irish State company.

Dr. Browne

I wish to intervene merely to congratulate the Minister on introducing this proposal. I have been what I can only describe as mesmerised by the extraordinary cavorting of Opposition speakers in recent weeks and months on matters such as this and on the question of whether we should spend money or not spend money. I must confess that it is extremely confusing to anybody who has listened in recent weeks to the profuse outpouring of a policy in which the dominant motif is: "The money does not matter; we will not mind the cost; we will manufacture money out of thin air." No more substantial solution was given to us. I was particularly interested in Deputy Cos-grave's contribution. I should like to say that, listening to Deputy Cosgrave, I have always found him a most honest and forthright Deputy, a fearless Deputy in putting forward his views. After you have listened to the swashbuckling declamations of Deputy Dillon on the one side and the perfervid oratory of Deputy Costello on the other, you can recover your balance and find that you have come back to earth once again in the solid and, if I may say so, the fairly unimaginative speeches of Deputy Cosgrave which at the same time can be true to the real political philosophy of Fine Gael policy over the year.

Deputy Cosgrave does not like the spending of money. He would not approve of large-scale —"experimentation" might be a dangerous word to use — investigation of how different Governments in this State might expand different enterprises in order to earn money for the community generally. I could see Deputy Cosgrave doubting the wisdom of spending money on Deputy McGilligan's scheme in years gone by, if they had been together in those years. I could see his doubting the wisdom of spending money on the now accepted very successful Shannon scheme and developments under the Electricity Supply Board. It was no doubt in these days a very chancy proposition. Similarly in relation to most of our other industries. Bord na Móna was an idea which could have been said to hold out a prospect of pouring what, no doubt, Deputy Dillon might have described as millions of money down a bog-hole.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy seems to be wandering somewhat from the terms of the Estimate.

Dr. Browne

I am relating my remarks to the Estimate because the general trend of the Opposition's attitude to the Estimate is that the money should not be spent as there is no hope of getting a return for it. I was glad to listen to Deputy Cosgrave and to hear him, in that type of honest speech that he usually delivers, give us a true insight into Fine Gael's attitude to the expansion of industry or the expansion of an enterprise of this nature. Deputy MacBride's contribution, oddly enough, was also in support of this objection. His objection was based on much the same proposition, that it would not earn dollars for this country. Consequently, he could not back the scheme.

Now, I think that is an argument which Deputy MacBride, of all Deputies, should be the last to advance because he used many of the arguments which the present Minister would now use in relation to this scheme when he himself introduced the Bill for the setting up of the news agency. I completely agreed with the setting up of the news agency, and backed up Deputy MacBride on it. Even if it were run at a loss, I would back it again if the opportunity were before me. I think it was and is a good idea. That was a proposition which Deputy MacBride had to put before the Dáil. He told the Dáil that it could not be run at a profit, and must continue, probably indefinitely to make a loss, not only in dollars, but in other ways. Therefore, I do not think we can attach too much importance to the seriousness of Deputy MacBride's objections to this particular proposition by the Minister in relation to a transatlantic air service on the conditions mentioned. Again, one might even go so far as to say that the Ministry over which Deputy MacBride had control in the inter-Party Government was a very expensive one and a very necessary one. It could never be said to be what one might call a money making one so far as the State is concerned.

I do not think myself that we should have any fears at all in trying out the proposition which is before us to-day. Deputy Collins, in his contribution, tread on what were to me rather dangerous paths. His suggestion was that, if this was a totally Irish owned and Irish operated service, he would be prepared to give it more sympathetic consideration. I must confess to a certain degree of culpability with Deputy Collins in admitting the fact that the inter-Party Government did stop the development of such a service. It is not quite fair then to say that I would oppose the proposal of using an American company to run a chartered service, with a particular contribution from us, in the lower personnel level. We are told that that is unacceptable to the Opposition. We were also told that the other totally Irish owned operating service was also unacceptable to the Opposition when it was the Government three or four years ago. Listening to the speeches of Opposition Deputies, one could only take it that any proposition to run a service across the Atlantic, in any form, if put forward by the present Minister, would be unacceptable to them. Their fear of experimentation, of any attempt to expand our airlines, gives one a true indication of the policies of the Fine Gael Government while in office. That attitude of mind comes very close to the attitude with which I became so familiar over my three years association with them.

There was another point made by Deputy MacBride. On first examination it appears quite a good point, namely, that short runs limited to New York and Shannon, New York and Dublin——

Mr. McGrath

And New York and Cork.

Dr. Browne

And New York and Cork if Deputy McGrath and Deputy Corry had their way — that these short runs could not be a paying proposition because of the likelihood that people would like to book straight through from one end of a journey to another. As I say, at first sight that looks a reasonably good point. I think, however, that the Minister is depending, to a large extent, on the Irish-American tourists who are going to come to spend their holidays in Ireland. I think that is a reasonable premiss on which to base this proposition of running a transatlantic service.

Apart from that I think there is a weakness in the argument put forward by Deputy MacBride to this extent, that Aer Lingus nows runs good feeder services either directly themselves or associated with other companies, such as K.L.M., to most of the other European capitals. I doubt if it would be an insuperable problem to arrange, certainly on this side of the Atlantic, that anyone could book straight through to Stockholm, Paris, or any of the other European capitals. I have no doubt that we can leave it to the Americans at the other end to arrange that New York need not be our terminal in relation to this service. They all know quite well and are glad to take passengers from any service. They are glad to co-operate as much as they can. As Deputy Collins has said, this is a highly competitive business and so they are glad to get passengers from anywhere. Consequently, I imagine that it will be possible for us to make arrangements on the American side, as we have made them to a large extent on this side, for the provision of a straight run through to any of the larger cities in North America.

As far as I am concerned I am completely on the side of the Minister in regard to this development. It is, I think, an even wiser proposition than the large-scale proposition which he had in hands formerly, because the way it looks to me is this: if in two, three or four years' time we find, even with all the thought and consideration which Aer Línte have given to this, that the promises on which they are working are false promises, then, to put it bluntly, we can cut our losses and get out of it. The losses will not be very great compared, say, to the cost of purchasing modern super airliners to run a service such as this.

I am not awfully impressed either with the argument that was made about the establishment of a big headquarters staff. I do not know the details of these things, but I am sure the Minister will be able to clear them up for us. We all know that K.L.M., the Scandinavian airlines, the French airlines and other airlines are running services of this kind, and, consequently there need not be a duplication or a multiplication of the number of fundamental services which are required beyond booking offices, which I may say are a very pleasant sight in other countries. You could go to our own booking offices and book home on our own planes. That may be a sentimental point, but it is a very pleasant feeling in a European capital or in New York for people to go to the head office of their own country and book their way on what they know to be a first-rate and extremely competently operated service home. That is a small part of the benefits that will accrue. If, however, we do manage to establish this service, after three or four years we may be able to keep it going with our own fully staffed service from the skilled ground staff to the pilots the whole way through. As I said, this is not the proper way to approach this problem. I am afraid I am not impressed by any of the arguments so far put up by the Opposition. I do not think that the Opposition have made a case against the scheme at all.

There is another relatively small point. I was rather horrified at the publicity or propaganda in relation to the development of our air services which was carried out in North America on the last occasion. I do not know whether the Minister was aware of it. It was a most appalling misrepresentation. So far as I can recollect, there were the typical Irish caubeen and the dudeen and I think the pig came in somewhere. That is a point which I hope the Minister will bear in mind and see that they do not put out that kind of nonsense again about the Irish air services. The Minister may have seen the stuff himself, but it was positively shameful. The publicity which is carried out at the moment in America so far as I can see is very good. I am sure that is a small matter which can easily be adjusted.

I welcome this development and I wish it the best of luck. I sincerely hope that after three or four years the Minister will be in a position to come to the House and say: "This has been a successful trial of an experiment. It is no longer experimental. I believe there are a lot of dollars in it and that it has helped the prestige of the country and has given us an opportunity to expand the excellent air services by Aer Lingus which have set a headline in Europe and which I hope will carry on the tremendous tradition which they have already established in Europe and throughout the North American continent." I do not subscribe to the proposition that the Dutch or the Americans or the British are capable of doing something which we cannot do equally well and, consequently, I am in favour of the proposition.

Mr. Rooney

Those who spoke in favour of this proposition, apart from the Minister, appear to be more confident than the Minister himself. In his introductory statement, the Minister was rather guarded and careful. He put the proposition to the House timidly. For instance he asked us to support this proposal and to forget the past. He had in mind the transatlantic air service which was stopped by the inter-Party Government. There were very good reasons why the inter-Party Government stopped that service. Many reasons were given at that time for such action. At the moment we have an internal transport system which is being run by Córas Iompair Éireann at a loss. It appears to me that when we have an airline running in a very satisfactory way by reason of good management we are being asked now, in addition to running an efficient air service, to start off running an air service at a loss. We have been asked by the Minister to chance this £450,000 and if it is not a success the scheme will be terminated. His statement was not backed up by a great deal of confidence. He appealed to the House to give it a trial and if it were a failure he would wind it up.

Some people mentioned that this particular service is being introduced in connection with the Tóstal venture next year. Are we asked to chance this £450,000 in order to make the Tóstal a success and get the advantage of the tourist money which this expenditure might bring? From the details given, it seems to me that if anybody stands to gain by the establishment of this service it will be the Seaboard and Western Airlines and not this country.

I was disappointed that the Minister did not give us particulars of the agreement or the general terms of the agreement. I had intended to ask a parliamentary question to-day to get some particulars regarding the agreement, but I was asked to wait to hear the Minister and not to anticipate him in this matter. Unfortunately, we were not given these particulars. I hope the Minister when replying will give us some particulars of that agreement, especially in relation to certain matters mentioned in the House regarding the negotiations that took place in reference to the personnel who will operate this scheme.

I heard Deputy Briscoe referring to Deputy Dillon's forecast in 1947, when the transatlantic air service was being debated, that rabbits would be running in Rineanna. It is true that rabbits would be running at Rineanna if the inter-Party Government had not made a strong stand and prevented the overflying of Shannon Airport which was contemplated about three years ago. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, of course, also took his part in insisting that the use of Rineanna should not be abandoned in favour of Dublin Airport. At that time, I believe, the United States Airlines wanted us to agree that Dublin Airport would be used instead of Rineanna. If they succeeded in their efforts in regard to that and had not been opposed very vigorously by Deputy Morrissey, who was Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time, supported by Deputy Lemass, as he was then, it is probable that Rineanna would be a forsaken place at the present time.

When the establishment of the Constellations was contemplated in 1947 the main argument for it was that it would bring prestige to this country. "Prestige" was the big word of the time. We should be able to show the world what great people we were, that we could fly our own planes at the expense of our own people. Remember at the time we were trying to put over this prestige act that our people were on 2 oz. of butter and that there were 100,000 houses needed. If the inter-Party Government at that time put a stop to those proposals I think they were well justified by their efforts to increase the ration of butter and other items of food available to our people and to pursue very vigorously the housing programme. We considered that that would add greater prestige to the country and be of more advantage to our people than the flying of a transatlantic air service which, I think, was to be started at an initial cost of something like £3,000,000. We considered that it would be of better advantage to see to our own people first before organising an air service of that nature for the pure and simple purpose of trying to establish prestige.

During the last few years the services of radio officers have not been required owing to modern developments. I would like to know from the Tánaiste, when he is replying, whether it would be possible in any way to fit those men in in connection with this new service if it is to be implemented. Similarly, there were pilots trained for the transatlantic air service at that time and there again I would like to know from the Tánaiste whether, in the course of his negotiations and in the terms of the agreement, any arrangements have been made to give those men a chance of operating the service if they wish to do so.

It seems to me, according to the particulars so far available concerning this agreement, that all-American crews will operate the service. I had hoped to hear from the Tánaiste the reason why this arrangement was made, the reason why it was necessary for him, if it was necessary, to give that concession to the Western Airline people. It was mentioned that this country would be liable to pay £2,000 for every trip that these planes would make from this country to America. I was wondering what was the basis of that calculation. If we take it that the cost of a passenger travelling would be £100, it means that we were asked to give a guarantee that on every trip there would be 20 passengers, or if there were not, that we would make up the difference ourselves. Therefore, we would like to know from the Tánaiste if he has figures which would satisfy us that there will be 20 or more passengers on the average travelling on these planes. That might in some way explain, so far as we are concerned, the reason for the guarantee of £2,000 per trip for these planes leaving the country.

I am not going to say any more on the matter at this stage because I feel that the Tánaiste has introduced this proposal as a kind of venture or experiment. He has asked us to experiment with this £450,000 and if the project is a failure, well and good. I have said already that it would seem to me that if there is any advantage to be got the advantage will go to the Western Airlines.

I cannot see what advantage this service will bring to us. Possibly the Tánaiste will put forward the argument that this arrangement will enable us to find out for ourselves whether, first of all, the transatlantic air service which was to be started with little or no prospect in 1948 would have been a proposition in a small country of 3,000,000 people. I wonder is there any country in the world with less than £3,000,000 operating a transatlantic service or a service anything like it. I am asking that question: Is there any country with less than £3,000,000 operating a service of this nature? I would like to be satisfied on that point by the Tánaiste.

General Mulcahy

The Parliamentary Secretary this morning was throwing his mind back to some remarks that were made on transatlantic air services or air services generally about 1946 or so. It throws my mind a little bit further back to 1944 when the Minister had a long term transport policy. We have now passed on ahead eight years on the foundations that the Minister then laid when he formed Córas Iompair Éireann. I cannot help thinking from the proposals that have been put before us to-day that we are now at the beginning of what the Minister would describe as the beginning of a long-term transport policy in the air. While we are still in the middle of the shocking transport situation in which the formation of Córas Iompair Éireann originally left us; while we have the prospect of having to pay — I think the Minister said — at least £1,500,000 this year to subsidise that body; while we are struggling and facing that demand and at the same time the difficulty which our people are suffering, at any rate in the City of Dublin, as a result of the disorganisation of the city transport; we are asked now to lift our minds on high and to take £457,000, which represents the profit which the former Minister for Industry and Commerce made in selling the Constellations a few years ago, wherever we are going to find that sum to-day, and we are going to throw it into the gamble that the Minister described here yesterday.

Many speakers have indicated the general condition in which we find ourselves now when it is proposed to embark on this new beginning of a long-term policy. The Minister has attempted to give explanations as to why the agreement made between Aer Línte and the American company is not being made public. While the members of the Oireachtas have not been permitted to see the terms of the agreement and while, perhaps, some of us might admit there may be reasons for not disclosing what may amount to certain confidential arrangements made between the representatives of Aer Línte and the representatives of the American company, at the same time the Minister should have made some attempt to sketch out the terms of the agreement, particularly those portions of it that are of a kind we would normally expect to get set out in an agreement such as this. Instead of doing that he has given us some general figures, a number of them brought out as a result of answers to questions put to him, and he has not sketched out in any way the normal paragraphs of the agreement that ought to be disclosed or, at any rate, disclosed to the members of this House before asking them to gamble even the initial £457,000.

The Minister's action, indeed his whole approach to this matter, is a very extraordinary one and would tend to make the House feel that he is pursuing a somewhat deceptive course. The Minister provides newspaper headlines through his statement here that the taxpayer will not have to pay anything for this and we are thereby more than ever convinced that the Minister is employing some degree of deception. If he has any faith in the proposals that he has put before us and if he thinks this venture is anything like a good proposition from the economic, political or any other point of view there is no reason why he should wrap up his proposals, his views or his manner of dealing with the matter in the House in what appears to be a somewhat deceptive cloak.

It is not true that the normal details of this agreement could not be put down here in a series of positive statements. Those that matter from the point of view of the business arrangements between the American company, on the one hand, and our company here and those that concern us from the point of view of our having to finance this venture should certainly be made available because members have the responsibility of voting on this proposed project. But the Minister has made no attempt to go systematically through the agreement and to outline the general proposals contained in the agreement. He prefers to stand on the ground that this is a private agreement between Aer Línte and the American company. Out of the blue, then, we have Deputy Briscoe's contribution to the debate; he happens to know that Aer Línte has from some international body a licence to carry on transatlantic air flights and that that licence is nearly up and if something is not done about it they are likely to lose it; but he does not know whether the Minister for Industry and Commerce is prepared to come into the House and admit that here. That just slipped out in debate from Deputy Briscoe; he happened to know.

We can understand the phrase: "Nuair is cruadh don chailligh caithfidh sí rith." If there is anything pressing Aer Línte or pressing the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or if he is pressing Aer Línte or vice versa, arising out of the fact that a licence exists which may lapse at some time, then the House ought to be told about that and the House ought to be told something further as to the general position with regard to these licences. It has been rather suggested by Deputy Briscoe that if the company with which Aer Línte is making the agreement looked for a licence to-morrow it would not get it although it is also rather suggested that there are such licences available. If there is any particular kind of pressure being brought to bear as a result of that we ought to have some explanation of the situation. If there is that in existence in the present situation, then it marks a very significant omission from the Minister's statement when introducing this Supplementary Estimate because he said absolutely nothing about it.

It was the Minister himself who was responsible for saying on the Vote on Account this year, namely 21st March, 1952, that the Government had decided that the burden of taxation had reached the danger point. The other day we had the Minister for Finance explaining that this country wanting money to carry on its capital development and looking for £20,000,000 could not find that money if it offered anything less than 5 per cent. More than the Minister for Finance are complaining about the scarcity of capital for investment and development purposes. More than he are realising that one has to collect the small savings of the people, the people who are in the economic condition of being able to save, before capital development or even industrial development can be further satisfactorily undertaken.

On the one hand, we are told that taxation is at the danger point and, on the other, we are told that the Minister for Finance must pay an exorbitant price for money. The signs of the times are that the greater part of this capital must be got from the small savings of the people. Yet, here we are dipping our hands into a bag about which nobody had been told anything and out of which we propose to take £457,000 and blow away £200,000 of that in a development from which there will be no return except the setting up of certain machinery, the greater part of which is held in the United States, the gathering by advertisement and by administrative action of the few thousands of tourist travellers expected to be available during the next three or four years. We must hold £250,000 for losses that will inevitably occur in the first and second year according to the Minister. All that can be done by a simple turn of the Minister's mind in circumstances in which the taxation position is described by him as at the danger point and our adverse financial position is so eloquently portrayed by the action of the Minister for Finance. We are asked here to raise a very substantial sum for a very costly and speculative kind of venture and it is proposed that we will dispose of £450,000 straightaway. The Minister appears to think that he can come into the House and just give a few figures as to what is expected in the way of travellers crossing the ocean in chartered planes.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again later.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 11 Dec 1952